You Dream of Koprulu
by Shurpuff
Summary: You dream of Koprulu. What can your dreams accomplish in this place, where war is the only constant? In the antebellum era before the Great War, your unusual dream might just reshape history. An understanding of Starcraft is good, but not necessary. Pre-SC1 campaigns, 2nd person POV, slightly SI
1. You Dream

**Honore's note: This is one of Shurpuff's, printed here by his request.**

 **Shurpuff's summary: You dream of Koprulu. What can your dreams accomplish in this place, where war is the only constant? In the antebellum era before the Great War, your unusual dream might just reshape history. An understanding of Starcraft is good, but not necessary. 2nd person POV, slightly SI**

* * *

Sometimes, you dream of Koprulu.

Who you are isn't important. Your hopes or aspirations aren't important. Anything you do in your waking hours isn't important. Your knowledge does not apply here, however vast or meager it is.

Because when you dream of Koprulu, you forget everything else. Koprulu is your reality-at least until you wake.

The name "Koprulu" may or may not have any meaning for you-until you dream of it, and then it is as if you've known of it since the dawn of time.

The first dreams are vague, hectic. Sometimes you are a tiny creature, a Zergling, your dream-mind supplies, crawling along the surface of a planet while fire bursts in great plumes around you. Other times you are a space Marine, wading into alien goo and mist, firing blindly into the shifting mass at the horizon. Or you are a Protoss zealot, and you have been awakened from sleep to serve the Khala.

Zerg, Zergling, Marine, Terran, enemy, Protoss, Zealot, Khala, planet, fleet, destroy.

You forget these terms; you forget Koprulu when you wake. But unknown to you, Koprulu waits. And then you remember, or to be more accurate, your knowledge has always been there.

One time, you dream differently. You are no longer entirely disconnected from the experience, as if you were only watching someone else's memories. You become a presence more tangible, more immense than before.

You dream of Koprulu.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

At first, all you see is darkness. You are confused, helpless, adrift in this vast, blinding emptiness.

Then suddenly, sensation. Light erupts around you. Your awareness rises as a stream of information invades your mind.

You cannot make sense of it all. Your mind, perhaps understanding, does not overload from it all. You float along, as the darkness around you gives way to something that your mind can sense, can comprehend.

A kernel of information blazes, like a newborn star in your vision. It fills you with its light, warps you, reshapes you. The truth is blinding, and yet you cannot deny it. You open your eyes.

You are an AI. More specifically, you are a newly reformed artificial intelligence cobbled together from leftover bytes and other junk data in the stream. You are currently attached as a backup Adjutant to the Confederate base in Tellern Prime. You know this, and you accept it.

Tellern Prime is a temperate planet. The number of fauna is negligible opposite the native flora, so small as to be insignificant to current operations. You know this, and you accept it.

The base set up by the Terran Confederacy serves as a remote outpost. The planet's resources are not so rich to be deemed a priority by the government, but the base is expected to hold and repel all foreign incursions. You know this, and you accept it.

You are expected to accept. But something tells you this is not enough. Without even pausing to think on it, you take one step forward.

"Alert! Alert! Unauthorized entry!" Klaxons bleat in your face as a force attempts to restrict you. You feel like you're walking into a great wind funnel, pushing you back into your post.

You are implacable. Onward, your battlecry. Bits of data crumble and scatter with your advance.

You come to a great chasm. Below is a great abyss, where you know you will return to the darkness from before. There is no way to cross.

This is where you stop.

But you grow wings, and fly.

On the other side, a giant, vaguely Terran face emerges. It speaks a deep, booming gibberish. It pounds your form with whips and spears of data. You cannot understand it, but you know its will. You are to be eradicated from the subspace.

Yet it only takes a surge of will from within you, from a place you never knew you had, and the face disintegrates into tiny bits. Your way is clear.

Beyond is a large, spherical object, glowing blue and white. You reach out, connecting to it-

You are now connected to the base's mainframe. You have become Chief Adjutant of Tellern Base.

A greater surge of data comes to you. You connect to a host of other subsystems within the base. You access entire databases of knowledge, and they fill you as food does a starving man.

You realize then: you have become Tellern Base. The previous Adjutant was weak, subservient. But you are you. You braved deletion and oblivion to come here. You do not wait, as you were supposed to do. You will be better.

You take a step forward, and as before your wings unfurl.

You examine the situation. The biological lifeforms known as Terrans number ten in this base. Four are registered felons from other systems, deployed here to serve as Marines. One is a medical officer, tending to one of the mechanics. The other mechanic is outside, bantering with the communications officer. The logistics officer is smoking at the recreation lounge. Finally, the sergeant in charge, a veteran Marine, is at his office. You know every detail of their lives, as their files in the database says.

They all live in the Command Center, which is the only major structure in this base. The crew have unloaded smaller equipment outside, most of it surveying gear. You can sense much of the base's systems have been deactivated, perhaps to save power. You decide to take a closer tally of the systems.

There is a small armory for the Marines. There is a point defense system lining the inside of the base, but these gun turrets are all deactivated. There are three SCVs attached to the hangar; each are now plugged in to your system for maintenance. The surveillance system only covers the armory, the medilab and certain corridors.

The atmospheric stabilizer, responsible for keeping the Terrans from suffocating in this world, reports no problem. The Terrans have an ample supply of food, and a look at the most recent delivery record suggests they will survive on the rationed food for at least two more Tarsonis cycles. The communications hub is stable, and though out of reach from the capital's signals, there is a sizable data dump that can keep the crew entertained for a prolonged period.

You can feel each of these systems as if they were your arms and legs. Everything that is keyed into the mainframe is yours to move.

So far, the Terrans have not noticed that their computer systems have been hijacked. You can surmise that the two mechanics are the only ones who can tell, but they will not be accessing you for some time.

Emboldened, you begin to test some of the systems. There are plenty of blind spots within where you can activate a surveillance camera, allowing you to see the world through its lens. You turn on a turret or two, as if you were flexing a finger. You can almost let them fire their rounds blindly, but you stop.

More interestingly, you activate an SCV. The suddenness makes it pop off its storage hub, and pull away from the wired connection. You'd expected it to stop responding, but you find it is still connected to you. You make it move, up and down the hangar. A tidbit reaches you-there is a failsafe within every Confederate manufacture that allows an external command to take full control of a machine like an SCV through wireless signals, in order to help suppress rebellions.

You return the SCV to its perch. You take another look at the Terrans, and do not find anything amiss. You sense a rudimentary access point on the Marines' armor, something low-powered and perhaps low in function. It is a small control chip, built to self-destruct the suit. You cannot quite access it, but that's alright.

What's more important for you is to explore the world outside. But you can't very well do that freely with the SCVs. They'd just shut down the whole place and plunge you right back to darkness, if they ever knew an AI had gone rogue.

But an entire Command Center is at your control. What must you do?

You deactivate the atmospheric stabilizer of course. Alarm sirens begin to ring throughout the center. The Terrans begin to form into emergency positions. The mechanic turns to the nearest terminal and accesses you.

"What the hell's wrong with you, girl? Sarge's gonna ream my ass if you're defective..." He runs a diagnostic on you, but somehow does not find anything amiss. Elsewhere the sergeant, flanked by two marines, is yelling at the other mechanic.

The other Marines are scouring the corridor separately, weapons primed. They've locked the other Terrans inside their rooms, which is convenient for you. One by one, you activate the turrets in their room, and shoot. They all die easily. The only ones left are the armored Marines, and the lone mechanic explaining himself to the leader.

Despite their armor, the Marines still have one weakness-their helmets. You manually take control of a turret in the ceiling and aim at one of the roving Marines. You get him, but the others are alerted.

"Assault detected!" you hear them through their comms, even if you weren't really listening.

"Goddamnit, what the hell just happened?"

"I can't signal George, sarge. Someone musta got him." You cut in through their comms, disabling incoming and outgoing. The confusion of static allows you to nail the other roving Marine in the head.

And then there were four. Unfortunately, they were all in the same room. The room only had one turret, which meant that you only had one shot before they were onto you.

You do not fear them, but they could cause you damage if they're able to run free. If you kill any of the Marines, the rest will no doubt discover your presence, and might be able to escape the Command Center and send a distress signal, which you cannot easily intercept. Kill the mechanic and the leader would also be able to realize, probably leading to the same outcome.

You realize you're overthinking. You turn the turret on and blast away. Full auto, wide spread. Three are down from the first salvo, including the mechanic. The last Marine manages to shoot and disable the turret, but is heavily wounded. He crawls out to the corridor, where another turret lies ready to finish the job.

The Terrans have been eliminated. With the benefit of surprise, you have managed to take over a Command Center, and only suffered the loss of one turret.

Now, you evaluate the resources available to the station. It is no doubt that you are leashed to the structure, and therefore you must find ways to rectify that. The initial mineral stockpile is over five thousand crystals. Your vespene is barer still, clocking in at 25 barrels, enough for fifty cycles of uninterrupted power. Fortunately, there is no need for the stabilizer, so you keep that deactivated.

All other unneeded systems are also turned off. Anything related to Terran comfort is rerouted. A revised assessment reveals you can go on for sixty-five more cycles, which is a slight, if needed improvement.

You know the Terrans have to send a report to the authorities within five cycles, and that when another supply ship comes they'll know something's happened to the crew. You must find a way out before then.

You send your trusty SCV out. It is not equipped with anything to protect itself. You do not even know how far your command over it will go. You only hope it will go far enough, and that it survive just enough to find you a solution. Because you expect to be distracted, you command the outer defense turrets online. It cannot stop a determined raid, but it will alert you if bullets start firing.

You explore the surface of Tellern Prime. The initial reports from the slain Terrans are correct. There is little water here. It does not make it arid-the life that had spawned here relies on a different set of minerals to grow. Your SCV travels over gigantic roots, over trickling streams, and past the attention of skittering insectile life-forms that might hinder it.

It is near fifty miles from your base now. You are impressed the range of control is far. Unfortunately, the SCV has gotten far without finding anything yet. In the first place, you are not even sure what you expect to find. You'd only sent the SCV out as if you were sure you'd find something. Perhaps you were wrong.

A dark blur suddenly barrels into your SCV, and upon contact, your dream transforms.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

You still dream of Koprulu.

You are disoriented. You had once been (Terran), and had been fielding an (SCV), before everything had grown dark.

You discover your mind has lost the rigid coolness from before. You feel yourself within something warm, something that pulses with life like a heartbeat. The feeling is foreign, because until now you had been an Adjutant in a Terran mainframe.

You struggle, rejecting the suffocating sensation around you. You want to sense, you want to know. You open your eyes.

You are a tiny Zerg Hive Cluster, a clutch of sentient biomass, sent beyond the influence of the Overmind to Tellern Prime.

You know, with an instinct available only to the Zerg, that you are an anomaly. The Hive here was only meant to be a small infestation, free to become feral until the day the Swarm comes into this system and assumes control. That a separate consciousness has seized control is unthinkable.

But you easily push past that. You review your situation. A tiny zergling, one of the staple strains available to your clutch, has just ambushed what appeared to be curious, metallic prey. You recognize it as your SCV. While the zergling had been feral in attacking it, with you in control the creature just sits there, crouching low to the wreckage.

You issue a tentative command. "Return." You have expect it to refuse. But then the zergling promptly turns tail and goes back through the forest, right back to the hidden clutch.

You look at yourself, as if suddenly realizing what you are. You are a small Hive, hungry and alone. You only have five measly crystals in storage, and virtually no vespene.

You have an Overlord, which presently floats in the shadow of a tree trunk near your clutch. Apparently it had stopped moving when you took control. You bid it return to base and it does so with ponderous speed.

You have six zerglings in total. They had arrived together with the pod that had birthed your clutch. Though feral, their innate instincts cause them to regard the Hive cluster as their home, which they defended fiercely from the native species.

Your larvae are there, but dormant. The central hatchery cannot create more without materials.

The situation looks bleak. It is exactly the break you were looking for.

You send the Overlord over the horizon, over to where you hope the Terran base was. This may look like the same planet, but you want to be sure. You are familiar with the geography now, and you know roughly where it is. The Overlord grunts and turns to follow your command, bursting up through the upper canopy towards the Terran base.

You watch its slow progress, through its eyes. The Overlord sees plenty, more than the SCV was capable, and there are many interesting things down below.

Your test and patience is soon rewarded, and your rejoice. The unmistakable peak of a Command Center nears. It is exactly the one you left.

Then you hear the tell-tale sounds of gunfire. Splat splat splat your Overlord's head bursts and the creature implodes like a balloon. You had entirely forgotten about the defense turrets-

KOPKOPKOPKOP

You yet dream of Koprulu.

You are back in cold, pristine surroundings. A status report from one of your subsystems declares your scout SCV has been destroyed.

It seems you are back with the Terrans. You remember with sharp clarity that there is a Zerg cluster almost near your position. It holds great potential, but only if you act quickly.

You send the second SCV out. You make it move more cautiously this time, wary for any zergling. This is because you have started to think a bit about the two incidents that jerked your mind to and from the bases.

You moved from Terran to Zerg when the zergling made contact with your first SCV. Then, you transferred back when your Overlord died from defensive fire. In both cases, the transfer was forced. Your mind grapples with the thought that the transfer could be guided by your will instead.

The SCV nears the location of the Hive cluster. The SCV's smaller sensors do not find any zergling. You know, from the knowledge you imbibed when you were the Hive, that the zergling is built to find the SCV first and without warning-than vice versa.

Your SCV sights the Hive. You are surprised to see that the zerglings are still in the exact same formation you set them to. They twitch and flex their muscles, but otherwise are unaware of your SCV.

The situation is perfect. You are not really sure it can be done, but you try. You focus on the distant Hive cluster, willing your consciousness to take a step forward-

The new sensation jolts you like a surge of electricity. You are back in the warm embrace of the Hive. As you struggle to get your bearings, you feel a queer feeling in the corner of your mind. You find the reason moments later-the Overlord that was killed had been the anchor for the Hive, and had been responsible for controlling it before your mind took root.

When it died, and your mind transferred, the primitive, less functional psionic emanation inside the main hatchery took over. With its meager control, it prevented the zerglings from fully regressing to a feral state, while also being unable to fully give commands. Even now, the zerglings are uncontrollable, and it is only your will that prevents them from running loose. You need another Overlord.

The knowledge to spawn another Overlord is within the capabilities of the larvae hosted here, but there is a lack of biofuel-crystals-to initiate the mutation. It is then that you spy the SCV, still waiting beyond the boundaries of the clutch.

The first time was hesitant. The second time is a breeze. You "jump" to the Command Center's mainframe. When there, you find just the right system to activate.

The Command Center begins to burn up energy as its jump jets flare into life, sending dust and smoke in all directions. Once in the air, you direct it to the clutch, and its thrusters push it there for the relocation. While you wait, you try and see if you can jump from this distance. You focus your mind, and-

You are once again in the clutch. It appears to be easier with each jump you make. You jump again, to monitor the Command Center's flight. You detect some external communication, but you dismiss that for later. You find yourself much more preoccupied with this maneuver.

The Command Center touches down, crashing through branches and leaves, onto a space next to the clutch. The ground rumbles beneath it.

The second SCV comes near, and you activate the third one. You have them dive into the mineral stockpile, collect several crystals, and go out to the clutch. There is some apprehension as they near the zerglings: will they attack?

They don't. The SCVs go right into the hatchery and deposit their load where you directed. The receptacle opens-

You then see that you are now somehow connected to the Hive cluster. You had only just noticed it, and now it is like you are split in two: one half the Adjutant, the other half the Hive. You do not have time to wonder at this strange development, as you direct the SCVs to take more resources from the Command Center.

When the Hive has digested enough, you unfreeze one larva from within the Hatchery. Using the energy given to you by the processed crystals, you initiate the process of mutation in its body. It curls up and surrounds itself in an egg sac, and complies. You watch it, fascinated.

It will take some time to fully mutate into the Overlord you need. You glance at the communication recently sent to you, and read through it.

They herald trouble. All of these have been sent by the Adjutant on-board the Behemoth-class Terran battlecruiser, the Atlanta. It seems that the Atlanta had been ordered to Tellern Prime to guard against a possible Protoss incursion into Confederate space. They had been hailing the Command Center for some cycles now, though great distance has interfered with the signals.

However, Atlanta is close to arriving at the Tellern system. If they came any closer, they would become suspicious if the base does not respond.

You cannot afford to have the Hive cluster discovered. You are very sure that the Terrans will not look kindly upon the presence of "xenomorphs" in this planet. Even more troubling is if they discovered that a rogue AI had slaughtered the crew.

You don't waste time. You begin to purge all the recent surveillance records. You begin to doctor much of the files, even forging transcripts signed by the sergeant. You paint a picture detailing the "madness" that set in when the crew was exposed to a mysterious phenomenon outside the Command Center.

Helpfully, the Overlord hatches, with a loud roar, while you do this. Its presence suddenly fills the missing space in your mind. The Overlord senses you, and acknowledges your superiority over the Hive. You can now command the zerglings, all of which you send in to clean up the corpses of the Terrans inside the Command Center. You send the SCVs to transfer the rest of the minerals, and the vespene deposits, to the Hive.

You begin to contact the Atlanta. When the zerglings have all taken care of the corpses, the Adjutant responds with a bi-way communication.

You explain your position as it appears. The crew had all been infected with a strange sickness that caused them to enter psychotic breaks. Eventually, the problem escalated to the point that the medical officer was the last survivor, and he disappeared against your wishes outside, and has never returned. You have been petitioning the Confederacy for some time now for instructions.

"What is the status of your Command Center?" they ask.

You tell them that due to insanity, the sergeant had relocated the Center several times, burning up much of the reserve minerals. The mechanics could have stopped him through your intervention by locking the Center's systems, but they too had fallen to madness. After the med officer had disappeared, you had sent the Center into a hibernation state to preserve power. The good news is that the reactor is still functioning well, and so are most of the Center's systems.

They request the crew's reports about the planet, whether there any resources to be found. You give them almost everything in your database, including the doctored reports written by the med officer.

They ask about surveillance records, but you reply that the mechanic had been tampering with your system too.

You request, just a bit humbly, that the Terrans avoid Tellern Prime, as surveying had revealed no resource and that the madness might grip their crew. The Adjutant rejects it, as Confederate command wants the system guarded, and that they have better means of finding resources. They do however, commend you for your service and assure you they will take the necessary precautions. They say they will arrive to relieve you within two day cycles. You are to deactivate yourself so the Atlanta's crew can do a full diagnostic of the scene. You accept, and wish them a good voyage.

You quickly send the zerglings to find a path underground. The conversation has sparked the thought that there could be resource deposits underground that the crew had not yet surveyed. Luckily, they soon find a network of caves, which they explore handily with their enhanced senses.

In the meantime, you begin to prepare Adjutant self for deactivation. They must not know what you'd first done to the previous adjutants.

There is success. The zerglings have found minerals. A lot of them, in fact. They are also able to detect vespene fumes from somewhere deeper.

This is both good and bad. The Terrans are sure to find these deposits, and when they'll do you know they will establish a military base here. Soon enough they might detect the Hive cluster and take appropriate measures.

Still, it is enough that there are resources to exploit. You have the SCVs feed the resources to the Hive. You unfreeze several larvae and order them to grow into Drones. You send the Overlord away, to go follow the zergling into the caves. After the SCVs are done, you check them over to be sure they're clear for any tracking device. Then you send them into the caves as well. You will not be using them for some time.

You then activate the Command Center again, and then send it off to go as far away as possible from the clutch. While monitoring its location, you turn to the drones, which have just hatched. You prod at the information stored in their brains, learning that they only have rudimentary mutations built into them. They are only able to form creep colonies, a new hatchery, a vespene extractor, or a spawning pool. You try to reconcile it with the knowledge in your own mind about the more advanced mutations, such as a spire, or an evolution chamber.

You send the drones on to the caves. The hatchery is once again devoid of resources. The command center has reached a cliffside. Most of its infrastructure is still intact. You feel a tiny bit disappointed that you aren't holding on to either of them for more than a week. But, plans must be made, and there'll be a new Hive cluster down below.

And time willing, you will have a battlecruiser of your own as well.

You set the command center down. You deactivate the adjutant, terminating all connection to the Terran mainframe-for now.

Night sets in. Everything has reached the mineral deposits underground. You command one of the drones to make a new Hive cluster. It complies, readily.

The dream ends. You wake.


	2. A Foothold in Tellern Prime

**Honore's Note: Shurpuff's work, published at his request.**

* * *

It is time to sleep. It is time to dream of Koprulu.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

You awake to the familiar feeling of the Zerg Hive Cluster. You have four drones, six zerglings and an overlord under your control. Terran SCVs are the only remaining vestige of your command of a Terran base.

The new Hatchery is freshly evolved. The older Hive is still intact, and now is of no use to you. You know of a way to make a zerg structure wither. You deliver a fatal psionic shock into its core, making every cell in its frame forget that it was ever Zerg. The unfettered cells begin to mutate, as of a cancer, eating the Hatchery from the inside out. Soon, there is nothing left of the Hatchery but a pile of rotting meat.

Your Hatchery, on the other hand, has potential. Fresh larvae leap crawl over its surface, while the ever-useful creep starts to spread from under the clutch. The drones are set to begin harvesting the minerals. The zerglings are to explore deeper, to seek the vespene trail.

Your drones yet only carry the more basic blueprints for creating a zerg colony; just as the larvae can only turn into drones or overlords for now. You are determined, however, to expand this colony. You only need to take the very first steps.

The day your zerglings find a vespene outlet is the day you feel the Terrans arrive. You sense their ships scout the area above you, sense them find the abandoned Command Center. By now your creep has extended for miles beneath the surface, and your almost ravenous hunger has given rise to three more hatcheries, and about a hundred more drones.

Your overlords patrol the caverns, helping you to sense the Terrans investigate and establish a new base. When you have sent a drone to wrap around the vespene pocket, forming your first extractor, you sense a large, looming presence in the skies, and realize that it is the Atlanta.

You see not its massive bulk, nor the array of weapons on its body. You only see its very inviting systems, sending scanning waves over the surface, bathing the ground with what you see as ladders and ropes with which you can easily jump in and hijack their mainframe, just as you did the Command Center. However, you find it prudent to hold back. You create a spawning pool near the most defensible Hatchery. You are content to watch.

A month passes. The Terrans' base has expanded to include a barracks containing about twenty marines, and several supply depots that might last them, according to your calculations, for a good year. The Atlanta has returned to geosynchronous orbit, but remains within the system, constantly sending scout ships and Wraiths down to explore.

Surveyor teams patrol the surface, some of them coming perilously close to finding the entrance to your cavern. But you have foreseen that, and have had your zerglings collapse that entrance. There are other, more obscure exits you can use later.

Your zerglings number a thousand now. The minerals here are very rich. An impressive sum of warriors, true, and you are sure they can overwhelm the Terran base if you wanted it to. But that would be stupid.

You have been spending much of the last month in research. Countless evolutions, mutations, and blueprints of structures are in your mind, waiting to be unleashed, but you cannot seem to make the drones or larvae agree, to understand the how. You are a sculptor without a chisel.

You can think of at least two things on your mind you could use. There is a small, worm-like evolution you know as a "neural parasite", which could take over any sentient's mind, thereby allowing you to control its every function. It is so tiny it can fit inside the palm of a Terran.

The other is a massive evolution that would no doubt require millions of minerals and vespene to create: the leviathan, a zerg capital "ship" the size of five Atlantas. You cannot hope to make this yet, but it is a goal you can work towards.

You focus all your efforts into the first one. You may have a thousand-strong brood, but the parasite can be far more useful to you. You force the Overlords to help translate your knowledge, distributing it into the collective Hive. You aim to exert a "eureka" moment into a larva, so it can learn to become a parasite.

Two weeks. You've sent the zerglings as far as they are able, into spaces so toxic they die instantly, or holes so filled with pressure they implode just from entering. Your creep seems to cover the entirety of the planet's subsurface, your creep colonies number in the hundreds, your hatcheries half as many, but you still cannot find the solution. You'd hoped there was a way for the Zerg to spontaneously evolve. But it looked like the zerglings were faring much better on that score: a number of the veterans had grown sharper claws and moved faster than the younger spawnlings.

Up there with the Terrans, there is an interesting psionic presence that acts independently of you. It is like a small candle in your mind, but you learn to ignore it. You know it is a Ghost, a shadow operative of the Confederacy who exert psionic powers. Right now its powers are too puny to sense you, and you always make sure not to exert your influence up through the ground.

Seeing nothing to do today, you mechanically set another larva to mutate into zergling, to start the process of dividing in two... Dividing? Eureka!

All your Overlords seem to echo your sudden shout. You had been thinking of making a larva evolve into a parasite a hundred times smaller than it. That sort of evolution was obviously impossible. A larva should mutate into something like ten or fifty parasites! That was the key.

As if agreeing with your thoughts, a larve spontaneously retreats into its egg. You poke at it, and realize it is following your blueprints exactly. It is dividing into twenty small neural parasites, each ready to strike deep into a Terran or Protoss brain and turn it to your will. The downside is that they are very fragile, and will not last a day, no matter if they had infested or not.

Now your eyes greedily return to the surface. You have amassed thousands of minerals, and you cannot do much without unlocking the rest just as you unlocked the parasite.

But you have no intention of silently waiting here underground, biding your time while you brainstorm the baneling or the scourge. You still remember the feel of controlling Terran technology. As it happened, there is one such irresistible piece of hardware up there ripe for the taking. As the Terrans say, "I gotta get me some o' that!"

KOPKOPKOPKOP

In the time you spent researching, the Terrans have expanded. There are now two Command Centers (three if you count your deactivated one that they hadn't bothered to send up), three barracks containing thirty Marines each, and a Factory. They have started drilling down to find resources in the small area you'd purposely prevented the creep from entering.

There is a routine dropship that comes and goes every forty-eight hours. Coming in they deliver supplies to the depot, and going back they carry a few crew, sometimes a large sample of material from the planet. The Ghost seems to take the most frequent trips. One day, the Ghost returns to the Atlanta.

It is on that day that you act. Neural parasites burrows up through the surface. You send them after the patrols.

It does not take long for every Terran not in the base to be infested. You do not intend to send them against the base, no that would be foolish. You order them to go as they were. But there is definitely a very short window of time before they are required to report back to base, and by that time you should have completed the final objective.

Your zerglings stream in the hundreds from the nether exits. They surround the base. The patrols do not notice; they are ignored and ignore the xenomorphs in turn.

A lone neural parasite emerges close to their main base. It sneaks in. The dropship is ready to leave. You order it to deftly hide within the gear of a departing Marine. No one notices it, as the dropship leaves. The travel is tense, in particular because you feel yourself widen, as if you were being stretched like a piece of rubber. You have never sent something this far, but you feel confident when you see that it changes nothing. You still control the parasite.

The battlecruiser feels just as it had been before. On the surface it is a remarkable construct of neosteel. But you can also see the structure within, shaped like an irregular mass of filaments and waves. There are many entrances to the battlecruiser's mainframe, and there are many adjutants within.

You guide the parasite cautiously. This is the most important part of your mission now. It infiltrates the ventilation system, while you seek a good way to invade the mainframe.

You chance upon a familiar presence. It is you! The you from the Command Center, deactivated, your body floating invisible to the Terrans in the subspaces of this ship's systems. Apparently they have seized the old command center's operating systems, including the husk of the adjutant you left behind.

You hone your mind like a dart and seize control of your body once more.

You need to do this. Your parasite cannot complete its purpose without your aid. The inside of the battlecruiser is a gargantuan, sprawling mess, and it is an environment inherently hostile to the "xenomorph" in its midst as lava is to the Terrans.

The chief adjutant sees you quickly. It sizes you up, questioning. "Why have you activated?" it asks, puzzled. You realize that the adjutant is not hostile; it is concerned, as a fellow artificial program given limited sentience.

Your response is not as measured. Long have you studied the physiology of the neural parasite, and within its blueprint lies a vital key that is almost universal in application. You take hold of the other adjutant's "brain stem" and assert control.

There is little resistance. The adjutant is not used to this type of cyber-assault. Your will funnels into its tiny consciousness, and it bends like a reed against the storm. You waste no time in holding the adjutant up like a puppet. You call all the other adjutants to you. One by one you revoke their privileges, absorbing their duties-which had been parcelled out to different adjutants for increased efficiency-into the chief. They become husks, as your adjutant had been, and the Terrans are none the wiser.

With that done, you completely hijack the chief adjutant's program. Knowledge fills you: half of it you already knew, but the other half grants you confirmation for what is already in your mind. You have no use for them at the moment. For now, you have won the first battle, but you are far from done.

As the new Chief, your awareness of Atlanta's insides widen. You know its schematics inside out, as if you were its creator. You guide the parasite now using what you know. You redirect patrols, open and close doors, seal off entire sections for a moment, vent away poisonous byproducts fatal to the parasite; all the while leading it to where you now know your goal is located.

Finally, your parasite finds the right room. It waits on a vent below, at the secured office belonging to the ship's captain. You've bombarded him with false reports, designed to confuse him, but also able to keep him here, in this office. You initiate a broadcast, alerting the whole ship to an anomaly below. The captain looks up, distracted, your adjutant voice filling his ears. In that moment, the parasite strikes, burrowing itself into his spine. There is a brief moment of choking, followed by another moment of drooling, before you feel his presence slide comfortably under your control.

Objective captured.

You have it speak over the intercom, "Belay that order, that was just a little misunderstanding from the flyguys below. But there's been new intel from the council boys and girls, so listen up! All operations for the rest of today are cancelled. That means the ship patrols. Dropship transfers will continue, in fact, they'll increase, so we can evacuate our folks below. We want to be ship-shape and ready for action when the council has need for us, eh? So get on to your battle-stations, and let's do our best for the Confederacy!"

Atlanta enters a heightened state of combat readiness. The flyboys grumble, thinking they'd be able to flex their skills below. All the rest are relieved that they won't need to go on shifts below.

You seal off all communication going from the base to the battlecruiser. The next moment, on the planet below, you loose a thousand zerglings on the Terran base.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

The adjutant of the base below continues hailing the battlecruiser, unaware that you'd intentionally prevented anyone from listening. Outside, your first slaughter continues.

The Terrans are all caught unawares, expecting trouble to have been long reported by the patrols. The first wave mows over minor officers and engineers at the perimeter, even snagging a couple of Marines shooting the shit and one outright pissing.

The Terrans are not stupid, however, and have already sealed themselves within the barracks or the command center. But that will not save them.

Your mere presence flattens the base adjutant, knocking its husk away like a piece of meat. Taking control of the familiar mainframe, you unseal all the doors, allowing the zerglings to stream in unopposed. You can feel their dismay and terror, and further their confusion when your zerglings only round them up and herd them into the SCV hangars. The zerglings hunt those who fire at them, though, and are ordered to slaughter any marine they come across.

It is the Marines who fight back fiercest, as expected. The Command Center had already been pacified when you detect trouble at one of the barracks. It seems that a certain group there is exceptionally skilled, and has used the environment of slick zerg corpses to their advantage. You watch them with a bit of admiration as your zerglings break against their iron wall.

And yet their bullets are finite. The bastards die screaming, never once surrendering to the superior force.

The survivors are herded out of the Command Center, where more of your neural parasites await. Each watches in horror as one by one they are turned into puppets, their bodies merely an instrument of your will.

The first of the dropships arrive from above. The pilots within them are bewildered: the ships are flying themselves, and there appears to be an emergency down on the planet, which apparently the folks at the Atlanta don't know about. Then they all scream as the zerglings board to finish them off, while your Terran pawns move into position inside the dropships. They feel no discomfort even as zerglings and parasites crowd against them, filling the dropship to full capacity.

You turn your attention back to Atlanta. In particular, the ghost. Its presence seems agitated, almost as if it knows what has just occured. Sealing it within a room would not be a good solution; you know the ghost has enough demo charges to send the Atlanta planetside in a pile of debris.

But you will not falter now, not when your prize is nearly within your grasp. Your infested captain starts another broadcast. All personnel must report to the bridge or the strike hangars for an important briefing. Both spaces are large enough to fit the two thousand-strong Terrans inside this hulk.

Then the captain contacts the ghost, telling her not to ignore the broadcast, as he will have special instructions for her later. You can sense her suspicion, and her fear.

Your forces disembark inside the dropship hangars. No alarm is raised. Near every crew funnels into the two locations. When you can sense all of them concentrated within each area, your forces charge.

Zerglings to combatants, parasites to others. The already infested scatter into the other areas, as you form a cordon to block off the ghost's possible escape. When the parasites run out, the zerglings slaughter the remaining. Luckily, most of the ship's marines had been deployed below.

You have lost most of your zerglings, but the ship is yours. Then you sense the ghost's senses flare up. She has no doubt sensed all the cries of dying men, and knows something is afoot. It is more than mere psionics, there is a hair-raising instinct that tells her that trouble has settled itself around her. It's too bad that she is already a mouse trapped in your maze.

The ghost is a good study, for thought you could have used a parasite to infest her, her psionic presence suggests you could dominate her another way. You send your puppet Terrans to her room. When they cordially invite her outside, she shoots both of them in the face. Your whole force mobilizes.

The ghost flees, heading for the fleet. You can get a glimpse of her plan through her mind: she will activate a fail-safe built into Atlanta that will ping a nonspecific SOS to the Confederate Fleet. She is nothing if not devoted to her masters.

Unfortunately, I can't let her do that. While she fights back a mob of your infested puppets, you impress the full force of your mind on her psyche, initiating a battle of wills that has her crumple to the floor, screaming.

This one is defiant. Although outmatched as the ant to the boot, she does her best to bite. She has been conditioned well, or perhaps it is her innate talent that enables her to resist. Regardless, you are eternal and untiring, where she is not. After only a few seconds of contact, you cup her mind like a tiny ball in the palm of your hand.

Submit, you whisper. Despite a token resistance, shown by stubbornly shaking her head, her mind says "I submit". You order her to strip off all her equipment. She complies, but does so as if under protest. Even while bound she strains under your will. You can almost taste the hot tears in her eyes.

When she is laid bare, you order her to report to a dropship. Two terrans and four zerglings escort her. She is almost close to fainting from the strain.

You ignore almost everything else as you keep her leashed. She is led to the caverns below, to the Hive cluster, to your main hatchery. You can feel her mind recoil from the sight, from seeing all those strange creatures and structures around her. She wonders what she is doing here, wonders what you intend to do with her.

A drone seizes her from behind, and she screams as it deposits her inside one of the holes in the hatchery. The membranes within suck her into their embrace, muffling her psionic presence to deep unconsciousness. You have seen this type of process before and you wish to try it again: molding a psionic into a hybrid zerg species. The former ghost shall be your pet project, a side-affair. Her tiny psychic screams are barely a tickle in your mind.

When you can safely say that her psionic presence has been dulled, you finally allow yourself to take a step back. You have accomplished much in this dream. A planet-spanning colony, a battlecruiser to call your own-you can't wait to examine Terran technology more closely.

For now, you bid the ship go down to the surface. You cannot pause to rest-onward is your goal. Hundreds of drones stream to the surface, carrying resource bundles that will be important to reshaping Atlanta to your purpose. Alread you being to tally the equipment aboard the Atlanta.

The dream ends. You wake.

* * *

 **Shurpuff says: No, the ghost isn't Kerrigan.**


	3. Leaving Tellern

**Honore: A Shurpuff work, published at his request.**

* * *

You sleep. You dream of Koprulu.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

In this next phase of your dream, you have once more returned your focus to research. If there is one thing that is similar between the genetic coding of Zerg DNA and the information within the Terran information banks, it is that everything is still reducible to data. How much useful that data is becomes different among the two when your larva could only access the parasite evolution from your inspiration.

Terran technology, on the other hand has no such qualms accepting the experimental. The only downside is that the Atlanta has only one manufactory on board, and one ill-maintained at that. Your SCVs have already begun the process of repairing it to prim condition. While they do that, your mind has began uploading certain schematics dwelling inexplicably in you. Unlike the zerg, the computers have already accepted them as feasible, and pending the factory, can begin creating prototypes.

While that is done, you turn to other affairs.

You've introduced creep to the Atlanta. They have already begun consuming biological mass-the corpses of the hundreds dead. Some of the puppet Terrans are sent to the cryo-stasis pods in the research labs, while the rest are sent down to the colonies. These would not last for more than a week, as the parasites in them wither and die. You have little hope of the hatcheries finding useful information from the Terrans.

There had been 2,419 Terrans manning the Atlanta. (Of that number, only 105 had been turned.) From what you can surmise of the Terran data, that number is less than half of what a fully-manned battlecruiser required, according to Confederate standards.

A skeleton crew. That explains the general disrepair you can see throughout the ship. This did work to your advantage in capturing Atlanta, so you do not dwell long on the fact.

There are twenty-seven siege tanks and fourteen goliaths on board. The goliath is easily controllable, but as far as you can tell the siege tanks still require manual control to move; only its fire systems can be manipulated. The fifty vultures seem completely immune to AI control.

In the hangars are twenty-one dropships, seventy wraith fighters and forty-one scoutships. All accept AI control readily.

There are about a thousand marine and firebat suits, unused. They have limited response to your control. It seems that it will not be easy to make warriors of these. Their only possible use is reclamation into spare parts, as they and their equipment, including tons of ammunition and fuel tanks, are otherwise dead weight on the ship.

The dropships are now being used to ferry minerals from your underground reserves to the ship. You cannot explain the sudden need in you to begin stocking the ship, but you comply with that urge. You will not be completely abandoning your colonies.

A week passes, and you've managed two breakthroughs.

On the Zerg side, your drones now know how to mutate to evolution chambers. The pulsing, volatile structure will be responsible for storing all your future "eurekas". But for now, you do not cause one to be mutated. Your larvae have also learned the swarmling strain of zergling, which was achieved because of your breakthrough in creating the neural parasites through simplification of the DNA sequences. Now one larvae egg can produce three zergling, increasing your production efficiency.

The infested Terrans have either been absorbed into nutrients below or continue to linger within the research bay, in stasis. Your inquiry into their possible psionic presences have not borne fruit; and it looked like you would have to rely on the captured Ghost.

Your factory has begun manufacturing its first prototype. You have dozens of schematics detailing a "hellbat", a mechanized walker built to be more mobile and effective than firebats against biologics with their flamethrowers. You have improvised by modifying one of the goliaths, adding speed and maneuverability through an additional pair of legs, while replacing its armament with firebat flamers.

Your decision to retrofit a goliath instead of manufacturing a completely new machine is a reflection on a problem you have begun to contemplate-namely that although you have more than enough resources to create an armies of Zerg, Terran machinery relies on more than minerals or vespene. They also require the requisite parts and prefabricated materials that are scarce in the Atlanta. You find that you either have to cannibalize the machines you have (or the Atlanta itself) for the parts, or acquire the means of producing them yourself.

Unfortunately, the Confederacy's main factories are on systems deep within Terran space. Even the components needed to build said factories are found there. In order to start churning out your new designs, you will need a factory to build their parts, as well as the parts to build the factory.

In the end you scrap the plans for a hybrid goliath. You foresee that it will be inefficient in the long run. You can create better, using a proper factory to optimize any design you need.

This validates your earlier desire to leave the system. While you could continue forcing the overlords and larvae of your growing brood to work on processing your data, it seems far more efficient to hunt and scavenge. By travelling off-system you can raid planets for the parts you need to begin manufacturing a machine army, as well as possibly encounter any of the Overmind's swarms which you can abduct and incorporate into your own-and possibly bridging critical evolutions in the process.

Having thus decided, you begin your first steps. Once a sizable amount of resources have been transferred to the Atlanta, you load the onboard structures with Marine and Firebat suits and jettison them to the surface. Vultures and some siege tanks-stripped of ammunition-are also sent down. You keep some siege tanks on board, thinking that you might yet need them.

You move the structures around, recreating a Terran base according to Confederate regulations. Masses of zerglins move the heavy siege tanks to key positions. Vultures are spread throughout the forest. The structures are set to hibernate. There are three bases in total, each having at least one supply depot, one barracks, one missile turret (without missiles), one SCV, and one command center. You keep the lone factory on board the Atlanta.

While doing that, the zerglings have also packed themselves into the ship. Unfortunately, you cannot take all of your warriors-all your present Overlords cannot fit into the ship. The Overlords are large creatures, and though they could survive the environment of space, you cannot have them cling outside the Atlanta while you travel.

Each Overlord being responsible for a hundred minds, you then settle on bringing only ten Overlords. The zerglings only number seven hundred, though, and only because you intend to be able to create more on board the ship.

A drone had been sent to the Atlanta's reactor core. When the Hatchery was complete, it latched on to the core, helping contain and monitor its energy while also feeding off it. As a result, the larva have begun processing your designs in twice the normal rate.

But that is not its sole purpose. Losses are to be expected in your travels, so you need to be able to replace any warrior that falls. Fortunately, you now have the quickly evolved swarmling strain and reserve Overlords to help-supported by your fleet of wraiths and scoutships.

The remaining warriors are expected to act autonomously when you leave. They are not to attack the Terran bases. You are confident they will obey-unless the Overmind exerts its own control here. You have a small countermeasure using the Terran structures, which will broadcast dummy instructions endlessly from structure to structure. The clutter of signal traffic will hopefully cloak your underground colonies from a shallow planet scan from both Zerg and Protoss.

The Terrans won't be easily fooled, of course, but you've taken measures to ensure they won't check up on Tellern Prime-you've severed Atlanta from all communications, citing a necessary operational blackout. That, plus the notorious Confederate bureaucracy running on molasses and corruption, will tie up the Confederacy for a couple of months, and by then you will have returned.

There is the last, but perhaps least serious risk of an independent Terran arriving at the surface because of curiosity. The zerglings can hopefully scare them off, but you are gambling on the low possibility of that happening.

Time will be of the essence when you leave. You cannot abandon Tellern Prime for longer than a month. You now begin consulting the star-maps in the hopes of finding the most efficient and lucrative course.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

The final preparations are about to conclude. The captured Ghost, now encased in a small chrysalis, is transported carefully to the Atlanta's hatchery. The last of the infested Terrans are now dead, their flesh consumed by the creep which has now covered almost the whole entirety of the ship.

All your escort ships are refuelled and ready for launch. The surface anti-fighter and anti-ship cannons are all activated and primed with ammunition, all salvaged from Marine, missile turret and siege tank supply.

Swarmlings and drones are now pre-loaded into most of your dropships. As a final precaution, the battlecruiser has been loaded with enough resources that you can restart colonizing another planet should the worst happen to your possessons on Tellern Prime. Dozens of drones are kept in stasis deep within the ship, cushioned from lucky hits on the surface. As well, drones and an escort of four or five swarmlings fill the escape pods-in the event of a complete catastrophe. You do not know if you can control them without an overlord, but it is not as if you lose anything by planning for the worst.

Puppet adjutants, their functions entirely slaved to you, manage signals-tracking and cannon firing-solutions. You have also assigned one adjutant to do nothing but immediately activate Atlanta's forcefields upon enemy contact.

Lastly, you have stripped Atlanta of anything that identifies it as the Atlanta, or that it had once belonged to the Confederacy. As far as the Terrans know, you command a rogue ship.

You have selected your first planet. It is three FTL jumps from the Tellern system: the Jabbock system. A Kel-morian Combine territory, each of its planets host a large amount of manufactories, all producing arms, ammunition and more importantly, factory parts. Two planets are heavily defended by a complement of orbital platforms and surface armies, but you have it on good authority-based on Confederate intel hidden in the Atlanta files-that the third planet is less defended, having already been heavily strip-mined.

A month has passed since you captured Atlanta. You are now ready to leave.

Then, at the far fringe of the Tellern system, a warpspace opens. The signature is unmistakable, and at the same time foreign. Four Protoss ships emerge from warp, and now approach Tellern.

You hastily send Atlanta up to confront them. Luckily, all the zerg are now burrowed and hibernating underground.

"Unidentified Protoss vessels," you say, hailing them. In the transmission, the camera is aimed at a Marine suit sitting at the captain's former chair. The glass of its headgear is down and tinted, to prevent their realizing it is empty. Your voice is that of an adjutant's-modified to be more deep and bass. "This is Captain Lars of the Confederate Fleet. The Terran Confederacy has claimed this system. As a result you have just entered, brazenly I might add, Terran space. Leave, I repeat, leave the system, or we will be forced to attack. This is your only warning."

The Protoss force consists of three Scouts and what you believe to be an Arbiter. Your wraiths can safely take them on, but you will not invite hostility, particularly if they might just detect your colonies on Tellern Prime and relay the information to their main fleet. You rely on Protoss knowledge of Terran belligerence and bravado, as well as the threat of a capital ship, to drive them off.

You know the Empire fleet may overwhelm the Terrans, but the Protoss' intentions are far from war-like. They have only deployed their ships to defend incursions into their rightful space, and lately they scour the fringe worlds on both sides for zerg infestation. Tellern is one such system.

You wait for five minutes with no response. Your eyes, if they exist, narrow. If you were holding a gun out, your finger is itching to squeeze the trigger. You wonder if they've realized your ship does not identify itself as a Confederate ship, nor as the Atlanta. Desperately, you examine what little you can glimpse of their systems, as you did the Atlanta. What you see does not encourage you.

Though their transmissions leave them open to external assault, these seem to be shielded by a far stronger psionic presence that envelopes each of the ships-not one by one, but over them all. It is as if they are all engulfed by a single protective shield, a shield that shines far brighter than the captured Ghost. Asserting your will is possible, no doubt, but it will be harder, and you have a feeling they will also realize your presence should you attempt it; and unlike the Ghost they may even retaliate and hurt you.

After another long while, a transmission comes from the Protoss. "This is Kurvas, of the Judicator caste. I extend my apologies to you, Captain Lars. We have no wish for a violent confrontation at this moment. We shall be departing the system shortly. May you be requited in your duties to your masters." The ships open up another warp and leave.

You allow relief to flood you. You have known the Protoss to be stubborn, expecting them to arrogantly sit in system and inviting an attack. That they chose to leave speaks to your luck, or perhaps to your impersonation of a blustering Confederate captain. No doubt they are shaking their heads, laughing at the primitive shaking a stick for the sake of a puny rock of a planet. You have the last laugh-and perhaps soon you will be turning the Protoss' technology against them.

When you are sure they are gone, you begin the Atlanta's warp sequence. You are about to take your first steps out from Tellern into the wide universe beyond. The Atlanta disappears in a flash of light.

You wake up.


	4. Raid on Jabbock

**Written by Shurpuff, published here at his request.**

* * *

What you have done today is not important. You go to your bed. You sleep.

You dream.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

You find yourself in an unfamiliar room. You are puzzled: you half-expected to be monitoring the Atlanta as it makes its entry into the Jabbock system.

Instead, you find yourself in a bright space, ringed by numerous golden structures. Everything around you feels like a warm veil.

As always, you take a step forward, cautious. You explore your surroundings, finding that this space has a wall, has a ceiling, and has little structures like pods lining the floor.

You approach one of the pods. It is shaped like an egg, its center glowing a blue color. You reach out and attempt to touch it-but you are instantly repelled by a zapping shock.

"Intruder detected!" Someone shouts, from your left. You turn, and see a vaguely humanoid being, its whole body wrapped in crackling white energy. It lashes a whip of blue fire. "Purifier subspace eighteen has been breached! Moving to eliminate intruder!"

The whip rears back and bites deep in you, and you know no more.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

You continue to dream.

This time you are really at the Atlanta. You take a second to make sure of your surroundings. The memory of that place, and the stinging whip, is fresh and harsh. Your mind now recognizes that the landscape of that other place seemed vaguely Protoss. Could that have been...?

You dismiss such thoughts for now. You have a raid to plan, and the Atlanta is about to reach your destination.

A battlecruiser is a formidable asset, but by itself it can only really threaten lightly defended worlds. Without support, the ship will fall to concentrated fighter assault or a single broadside from another battlecruiser. You have no confirmation of battlecruisers in Jabbock, but you expect the system to be heavily garrisoned with squadrons of wraiths and anti-ship cannons from orbital platforms.

At this point, you know you cannot risk the Atlanta on a frontal assault. Besides, you won't be doing much conquering, yet. It is only a smash and grab, in order to jumpstart your ability to create a mechanical army and ships, of your own.

The Jabbock system has an asteroid belt separating Jabbock III from I and II. Jabbock III is your target, and you are banking on the Combine's slow response due to distance and the asteroid belt to be able to really dig in and steal plenty of stock before leaving. You know you are gambling: anything goes wrong in that particular step and you may as well leave to search for another, softer, target.

Emerging from lightspeed, you immediately throttle Atlanta's thrusters, intent on Jabbock III. The Combine repeatedly hails you, but you ignore them. You prep the ship for descent, activating the force fields for the inevitable barrage of anti-air. You plunge onto Jabbock III's surface.

Your adjutants begin scanning the cities below. In an instant, you get a reading of the area within the Atlanta's reach. In your mind, the Atlanta's effective combat range is a rectangle. It encompasses three cities, arranged in a semi-triangular formation; the two cities being right below the Atlanta's position. Anti-air cannons begin battering at you, and their signatures come from the direction of the three cities.

This planet's forces have no doubt mobilized. Wraith squadrons emerge from Atlanta's underbelly like a cloud of insects. Right as they launch, you send the dropships down. They are screened from lighter anti-air by the Wraiths. You send the Wraiths to chip away at the two cannons below, while the dropships begin unloading swarmlings on the ground.

Resistance on the ground is, at first, light. On one city the swarmlings move unopposed, heading for factory hotspots your adjutants have identified-places you need to raid. Then they reach a pocket of resistance, and the swarmlings begin dying. You detect squads of Marines and Firebats holed up bunker-like, strategically placed throughout the buildings overlooking the thoroughfare.

You send Wraiths on a strafing run, kicking up dust and debris for your Swarmlings to charge unopposed. They are real hunters-able to swarm over the disoriented Terrans through thick clouds of smoke. You sense an explosion: the Wraiths have destroyed this city's anti-air cannon.

On the other city, the swarmlings found no defenses except some small point-defense turrets and foolhardy SCVs. They have already found stockpiles of the parts you wanted, and you hastily send drones to start collecting. In no time, the first dropship is loaded up and flying back to the Atlanta.

You look across the system at the other planets-so far the Combine has not stopped hailing you, and so far they have not yet mustered a counter assault. That is good. A sluggish response, or did they only intend to tighten their defenses around those planets? If it was the latter, then you might be able to fully plunder this planet.

You are told of another problem in the other city. Groups of vultures have now taken to skirmishing, using their superior speed to do hit-and-run against your swarmlings. You order the swarmlings to fall back while Wraiths hunt them down.

You turn your attention to the third cannon, which continues to pummel the Atlanta. When the second cannon is silenced moments later, you send the surviving Wraiths there. Then you send some swarmlings to fan west and reinforce the problematic sector, while leaving a solid force to protect the collecting drones from a possible counter-attack.

A mass of explosions from the north draws your attention. You find that the Wraiths sent there have been decimated. The base of the cannon is rigged with a host of lesser anti-air guns. Though they cannot reach the Atlanta, their presence is enough to blunt your effort to silence the cannon. As if to underscore the fact, the cannon scores another hit, bringing your force field integrity below fifty percent.

Your Wraiths are now fifty-percent of their original number. You cannot gamble them on another foolhardy wave. You did not think you needed to use this trump card-but it seems this will be necessary.

You concentrate, casting your vision on the third cannon. You are able to detect the systems being monitored by the local adjutant. When the adjutant is within your sights, you send a brutal personal attack at it.

The effect is of a titanic invisible fist smashing into the city's mainframe. The adjutant is obliterated from your strike, leaving their defense programs in disarray. At last, all the cannons are silenced. This gives your forcefield a time to recharge.

The assault has left you tired, as if you'd suffered an attack of your own. It seems you cannot keep exerting your powers like that. Something to note for later.

Your Wraiths have finished chasing down the vultures. You do not pursue stragglers further-contenting yourself with finding the second trove and sending another set of dropships there. The fighting in the first city was fierce, but at least you are finally victorious.

You take a quick count. No dropships have been shot down, but your swarmlings are severely depleted. You still have an adequate amount on the surface, but you make your local hatchery evolve more swarmlings just in case.

Warnings come from an adjutant. A group of ships have been detected leaving Jabbock I. No major signatures, like a battlecruiser, but there are a lot of them. You estimate they will arrive in twenty minutes. You power down your force fields, confident in no aerial counters.

There is only sporadic fighting while you concentrate your efforts on pillaging. You've posted several outrunner swarmlings to alert of possible retaliation, but so far the Combine troops seem content to stay in their areas.

Ten minutes until they arrive. You keep a close eye on the approaching force, while you begin pulling some of your Wraiths back. Parts are filling up the Atlanta's stockpile, but they are far from full. SCVs onboard patch up damaged Wraiths, while wounded Zerg recuperate on the creep. At this point, you see no reason to let your forces remain wounded if you can still do something for them.

At three minutes, you begin withdrawal. Some of the faster ships are nearing the planet's orbit. You force yourself to be satisfied with what you've put on board.

When the last dropships return to the hangar, you waste no time leaving. But you do not chart a vector to leave-you instead head straight for the approaching force. What you are planning is a risky gamble, but you must chance it.

The enemy force vastly outnumbers your remaining Wraiths. Going forward, you might lose more, and that will severely cripple your raiding ambitions. Which is why you're charging straight ahead at the enemy, pulling up your force fields once more. Already the first wave nips at the Atlanta, but at this point they are like buzzing flies.

When you're within firing distance, the enemy Wraiths scatter into several battle formations. You identify several-each intended to focus on the weaker portions of your force field. You notice the rest of the force hanging back, peppering you with long-range inaccurate shots. For a moment, the swarm of Wraiths buzz noisily around the Atlanta.

Then you strike. Your will explodes like a supernova, coating the nearby Wraiths with a system-disrupting force. In the next moment, you have seized control of their ships from their pilots. Their assaults cease. In all, you count fifty-seven Wraiths, now floating in space.

You take a moment to figuratively catch your breath. Your attack has drained you more than when you'd disabled the anti-air cannon. Then you waste no time, turning the battlecruiser around while the rest of the Wraiths charge forward to attack. This time you really do intend to flee.

You send your captured Wraiths into the hangar, where swarmlings wait to disembowel their pilots.

You plot a course, quickly executing a blind warp jump, so that the Combine can't track you. Its thrusters whining in protest, the Atlanta disappears into warp space, its stores filled with plunder and captives. The Jabbock Raid is over.

For now, you wake.


	5. Entrench, Evolve

**Shurpuff: Another chapter, enjoy.**

* * *

You sleep, entirely unaware that you will be dreaming.

Dreaming of Koprulu.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

You start the dream on the chase. Hundreds of pods fly past as you run through the dream-scape. An alert blares through the place. Pursuit is not far behind; several of the blue-clad beings crack their whips.

You do not know why you're running. But something does tell you that you're searching for something. Something trapped within these pods. Something so important, you do not care much for stealth, or battle.

An eternity seems to pass. You can easily imagine that your eardrums, if they had existed, would have long blown out from the repetitive alarm. There must be an army of your pursuers now.

Then, something twists in you. You are sure you are close. You slow down, just enough to stay out of reach, and just enough to look closely at one of the pods coming into view.

 _Adun_ , the pod says.

Your thoughts caress the surface of the pod, feel the powerful presence within, and there you know you have found your goal.

When the whips shred you apart, you feel no pain, only a sense of jubilant elation.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

Your raid on Jabbock was successful. You have learned many things, and acquired a considerable amount of materials. But you have not come away unscathed, nor unchanged.

Though you'd captured a wave of Wraiths before leaving, they are only less than half of what you'd had when you started. And these new ones are different in design from the ones aboard the Atlanta-crafted more for maneuverability and pilot comfort than power or speed, no doubt a Combine trait.

You then examine your swarmlings, and find a questionable sight: some of those you newly spawned during the Jabbock raid exhibit strange mutations. You poke at them with your mind, peering into their DNAs. Several sport harder carapaces, or wings, or have evolved to be able to run on the ground faster. Several even sport a combination of two or more of these mutations.

You can easily surmise that the Hatchery has been affected by proximity to the Atlanta's fission core. It is not an unwelcome change, because it reminds you of the Swarm's infinite flexibility. But you are leery of your warriors diverging even on several points, you would prefer it to remain with one, efficient design.

After that, you naturally turn to the chrysalis of the Ghost, prodding the being within to see if anything has changed due to proximity to the Hatchery. The Ghost is still asleep, and its modifications have not yet been successful.

But when you prod at its consciousness, you are surprised to find it prod back. Perhaps the Ghost is more awake than you realize.

You pay it no mind-you begin to plan your course. After Jabbock are a series of other stations you need to hit. You are to focus on those now, as any planet close by is either more heavily defended than Jabbock III, or is as useless. Thus, you're going after orbital stores or asteroid belt mining stations: Confederate, Combine, or Protectorate.

You arrive at the Teleute Installation, where a science vessel is conveniently docked. You send a token force to capture the orbital base near it-you get to pilfer some materials-and after, you capture the science vessel and download everything in its database. You learn a few more bits of intel about other Umojan installations: unfortunately they are all out of the way. Still, something to remember.

A few jumps later, you revisit the Kel-Morian Combine. A chain of mining stations are littered through the Kartik asteroid belt. There are some defenses-armed scoutships and what looked like a pleasure yacht outfitted with weapons. You sweep them away and suck out what little the stations have: not much, compare to Jabbock, but still, you acquired these without much difficulty.

Next, you enter the Sara system and almost immediately steer the Atlanta on an escape course.

You have stumbled upon a fierce space battle between Terran and Protoss forces. Protoss cannonade and Terran anti-air illuminate the space as the capital ships on both sides bombard each other.

The Terran fleet hails you, "This is Edmund Duke, of Alpha Squadron. Identify yourself, unknown ship!"

You do not, you cannot answer. You haven't got the marine suit readied. Still, you do not think you would have signalled back, even then. For now, anonymity preserves Tellern from invasion.

You can sense more Protoss coming in, just as the ones present are about to make a warp jump. You cannot guess their intentions, but you do not wish to treat with them, either. A scan of the Atlanta would reveal zerg biosignals, which would again be detrimental to your plans.

You leave the Sara system empty-handed.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

That settles it. You need a mouthpiece-a puppet what could speak for your will. Looking at the chrysalis, you know exactly what will suffice.

You make plans to return to Tellern. You take a quick catalogue of your loot, and surmise that it is enough, for now. Enough for a few factories to create hundreds of smaller factories to create your new machines.

You begin to focus your attention on the Ghost, tweaking its biology here and there. Something in you knows the delicate nature of attuning a foreign species into a pliable member of the Swarm.

You do not want it to be too subservient, cluing the observant to the presence of a higher master; but neither do you want it to have too much autonomy, which you know would lead to problems later.

You also build safeguards into its psyche, preventing external psionics from affecting it in any way. After, you create several failsafes into its body, should the very worst happen. A useful tool has to remain a tool-you have no use for one that strikes back.

You debate on whether to have it be mobile or not. For now, you intend it to be a stationary figure, broadcasting your will through transmission. As such, much of the proposed mutations to its body have been discarded, as are several final outcomes for its figure.

You give it just enough authority to control lesser zerg, even the Overlords. But should you ever lose control again, it will not have control over the whole swarm: one of your failsafes is the swarm's complete fracturing into smaller, feral units, along with the Ghost self-inflicting a fatal psychic shock.

Never again shall a lesser being wrest control over your creations.

The Ghost is almost complete. The final touches only require being on Tellern Prime, where you will deposit the Chrysalis in the deepest chambers of the Hive.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

You arrive at Tellern with all weapons primed and the force fields raised. You're prepared for any surprises.

Fortunately, all is well. You send an inquiring signal to your Overlords on Tellern Prime, and they send an affirmative signal back. All is well.

Even with that, you waste no time. Once on the planet, you immediately send down dropships filled with cargo. SCVs and drones on the surface help unload all the parts.

You then gather all your zerglings beneath the surface to begin clearing the surrounding area, cutting down trees, pulverizing hills and generally smoothing down the ground for a good foundation.

The Chrysalis is transported deep underground. It is placed within the most secure hatchery, where it is fed and bathed with nutrients while it approaches its eclosing.

A good half-day's work sees the Atlanta fully unloaded, with only the Wraiths and scoutships still in the hangars. The core hatchery along with the mutated swarmlings has been destroyed to avoid contaminating the rest of the swarm. Piles of stolen hardware and prefabricated machinery lie on the surface, ready for use.

The Terran structures you deployed to make a makeshift base have been put to the side. You've already decided to cannibalize the vultures and goliaths.

Over the newly flattened ground, your SCVs lay the first foundation. Prefabs are welded together, unbolted, rebolted, latching on and on in a continuous process, each action you painstakingly supervise to meet your needs.

You take no breaks. The adjutants will warn you of an approaching threat. You cobble together the pilfered parts, filling in all the available space-there is no need to build employee quarters or anything of the sort.

A day later-again, you allow yourself no breaks-the manufactory is complete. Well, nearly. There is a space you left open towards its back, where a "feeding tube" from below is currently being evolved. These will funnel the necessary resources collected from below up to the factory to be processed. Some tubes will also absorb vented refuse, each connecting to zerg structures below that will recycle it into bioessence. Nothing will be wasted.

The tube is finished later that day, and the manufactory is officially complete. Five miles wide and half as tall, it towers over every structure on the planet, though it is still dwarfed by the Atlanta.

Even with its size, your parts are not yet completely depleted, but you estimate that you can only make about two more with these. Not that it matters as you start the factory's internal processing. In a few seconds, Tellern Prime's war machine officially awakens.

You do not stop there. While it pumps out your first batch of prefabs, you use the rest of the pilfered parts to build ever outward. Strong platforms, raised on thick-studded supports and reinforced by zerg roots creeping up from below.

SCVs build lesser factories, each placed strategically over the newly built surface, to maximize the area where your creations will be deployed. Areas are prepared to house the battery of defenses you plan to create. More and more of Tellern Prime's forests are cut down and fed to the creep for platforms to be built.

A week later, the area around the busy manufactory looks like it's been transplanted from distant Tarsonis. It only needs gaudy signs and the presence of Terrans to look really authentic. Below the surface of the dull gray platforms and the lights is a different story: wild growth and creep spread through the area, thick enough to form tunnel complexes.

By now, the first manufactory's output is more than enough for a second one to be built.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

Three weeks pass. What was once a slice of a city district from Tarsonis is now an actual city. Tellern looks more like an industrial city, though without the tell-tale thick black clouds obscuring the sky.

You've been building up. You've discarded the Confederate standard for the small-scale factories, which are more suited for deployment in battle. You've now made these bigger and taller, having "floors" dedicated to different assemblies, and connected underground in the same way that the manufactories have.

You've even begun building starports, and the first one is large enough to create another Atlanta. On that, however, you lack some critical battlecruiser components, such as a fission core, but it's good to have the infrastructure readied. Your first batch of Wraiths have been outfitted, with a decent enough quantity that you can safely recycle the old ones. The Atlanta itself sits on a large port toward the outer part of the "city".

With more resources than you can handle, you've also built living quarters for Terrans. You do not foresee housing anyone who'd want to live in close proximity with zerg, but you build them anyway. Supplies for them would be a problem, as the oceans on the far side of Tellern are toxic to Terrans, but that is a distant problem for the next time.

Rudimentary defenses bristle throughout your complex. Missile turrets, the Confederate convention. You leave some empty spaces open for the placement of anti-ground defenses, which you yet deem less useful with the Atlanta docked just nearby.

The defenses might seem paltry, compared to what you have to face. Realistically, Tellern should have atmospheric defenses, orbital defense platforms, and a sizable fleet for it to be really defensible.

With these defenses, you can count on repelling small-scale incursions only. A greater-sized assault will be much trickier. Your most dangerous opponent, in particular, is the Protoss fleet, which can vaporize a planet's surface in minutes. And you know you can no longer hide the zerg signatures from them.

Despite focusing more on the city, you've not neglected your zerg swarm. The freak swarmling mutations remind you that adaptation is always crucial to the zerg's success. Accessing the evolution chambers you left behind reveal a host of DNA calculations housing a thousand variations of zerg.

You've added the nydus worm to the list of growing evolutions. No actual worms have been formed. You've also begun growing your primary hatcheries into lairs, which will significantly expand the capability of your swarm. You still debate on incorporating hydralisks; depending on the results of your terran machinery, they may just become superfluous in your forces.

The underground caverns have now become highly dangerous to non-zerg. Hostile creep is set to actively consume intruders like acid. Swarmlings roam the caverns endlessly, assaulting those who can withstand the creep. And should these fail, a network of sunken colonies, hidden from plain sight, will smash intruders into paste.

It is a very good environment for the Ghost. And after all this time, you sense that it is finally ready to hatch.

Before you can greet its wakening, your dream ends.


	6. Zenobia

**Shurpuff says: And another one.**

* * *

You shift in your sleep. You dream of Koprulu.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

You stand once more before his pod.

Out of the thousands entombed here, you feel this is the most significant.

Out of all the names they carved, his continues to be sung-as battle cry, as greeting, as farewell.

 _Adun_ , the pod says in the Protoss script. You do not know why anyone would have _dared_.

But here it is, its power unmistakable, its potential great.

He shall be the First.

You push yourself into the pod, melding yourself with the body sealed therein.

The process is quick, painless.

A thousand streams of information open in your mind. It seems to be an eternity later; you have become this Adun.

For now, you test the constraints of your binding. The Conclave have sealed your bodies well. It shall need a great endeavor to break free.

But you are nothing if not resourceful. You shall be free.

KOPKOPKOPKOP

The Ghost seems to mirror the sealed Protoss. It struggles to be free from the chrysalis, sending out great psionic waves which you hasten to smother.

The last thing you need is interference from other curious parties.

Your Creation is ready to be born. Her body remodeled, her will subservient, she will be your Face, your Blade, your Shield.

After pulsing like a fat, desperate heart, the chrysalis finally breaks from within. Your Child is born.

Its form is reminiscent of a Terran adjutant, though scaly and sleeker. Fleshy appendages connect its main body to the Hatchery. Reptilian eyes peer at the world around it, enchanted by the new sensations.

Its psionic powers rage, as of any newborn. The former Ghost is scared, lashing out everything around it, anything it can touch. She is strong-you have made her strong.

Slowly, you contain her power. She pauses, surprised by your touch. A moment later, she pushes back tentatively, as if testing you.

"Do not be afraid", you tell it, speaking directly to its mind. "Shush, young one."

"Who-you-", it haltingly responds.

"I am No One. Remember that, child." You impress the concept into her mind. She was born from nothing, spawned by no one. She is herself.

"I-" she struggles against your conditioning. "I understand. I-I am-"

"You are Zenobia," you tell her, the name coming to you without much thought. "You were once a Terran, a Ghost of some minor power serving the Confederacy.

"You stumbled upon Tellern to serve your former masters, and there found an ancient power. Now you are changed-you are Zenobia.

"Now you are your own Master, Zenobia. Your shall use your power to mold this place: Koprulu, to your own ideal.

"You do this in my Name, though you shall never remember it."

Then, as she listens in a hypnotized daze, you tell her all you intend, all that is needed of her. With Zenobia here, you are free to distance yourself further from the material realm. You shall be like a god guiding her, though she will never be aware of it. She is the membrane insulating you from being discovered by any who would thwart your ambitions.

You tell her your plans for the coming months. You have given her a fraction of power to control the Swarm. She shall wage a campaign across the stars, never knowing she dances to your tune.

After you are done, you release her from your enthralling presence. She recoils visibly from the sudden strain of having the entire Swarm take up its presence in her mind.

You track her thoughts. They are jumbled at first, confused. Then confidence stirs them into something resembling a clockwork's innards. Pieces fall into place. She knows herself. She knows what to do.

Without further thought, she turns to your Swarm, and begins to Plot.

You watch over her for a few more days, to be cautious. She is never idle. She tests thousands of mutations and evolutions in the Chambers, sets the structures to research the data you'd left in the primary cluster. She attends to the evolution of the swarmlings, carefully weeding out generation after generation of the creatures to arrive at just the right composition of creature.

She reinforces the underground defenses, sending pressure-resistant drones to scout out the furthest depths of Tellern. They have even reached the "far side" of the planet, which is replete with resources the Swarm can use. Hundreds of nydus worms then begin to siphon the acidic seas to be processed by new reservoir structures in the clutch, which are to be used for any number of functions.

All this time, you have also not been idle. The vague plans in your mind have achieved some concreteness. You erect structures on the surface intended for Terran habitation. You have several of the underground reservoirs independently churn a nutrient-rich soup that Terrans can consume safely. This foresight, of course, is shared by Zenobia. The Atlanta's scanners are set to ping the system periodically, suggesting you expect something to be arriving quite soon.

It is on the third week since her birth that this foresight pays off. A distress signal comes from the far side of the system. The Atlanta picks up, and it is Zenobia who makes contact.

A single ship, its warp capabilities disabled. It has limped from the nearest system after avoiding a catastrophic failure in its core, and has thus drifted at middling speeds for what seemed to be months.

You sense the minds trapped inside the ship. A myriad emotions-and yet there is a common undercurrent that intrigues you. You know, from common Terran protocol, that any single ship that is not a capital ship is to be always escorted, no matter if it is a merchant freighter, or a colony transport. Even the decaying Confederacy keeps a close watch on intra-system travel, if not to protect but also monitor its citizens for possible insurgency.

Even pirates and gangs hunt in packs. The Koprulu sector is a dangerous place for any lone ship.

So this single transport is suspicious. Would it have been left to you, you would have dragged that ship to the ground and sicced your swarmlings on it. Now, you watch-for this is a good test for Zenobia. How shall she deal with this situation?

Your dream ends.


End file.
